All We Can Do
by Fuuga Kumi
Summary: Set post Re:Coded. Sora sits down for a chat with the people in his heart to devise a plan to save a few certain Keyblade Masters. Pasts are brought into question, hearts are put on the line. Beware low flying fluff


**All We Can Do**

Sora drifts to sleep with a busy mind and heavy heart. He sinks through the layers of his subconscious; there are stars, the soft crack of universes being born, then the moon sliding overhead with the familiar hush of the ocean. He lets the water carry him where it will, a little mental rowboat keeping him dry, here in the land where dreams reign supreme. The sky is cloudy and the water dark, but Sora is too pre-occupied trying to crack this puzzle to notice his own internal landscape.

(And things shift; there is the puff of smoke and the steady chug of an engine as the train he is in glides easily through the landscape, the forest crowding the view out the window.)

The problem is…well, the problem is he doesn't know where to start or even how to. Everything up to this point had pretty much fallen as it saw fit and part of him couldn't help but wonder if maybe this was too big for him to handle. Maybe the unerring trust everyone seemed to have in him had been misplaced. Maybe…

(The train derails with a screech and begins a long tumble off a high cliff.)

"Sora!"

He blinks and the train is gone. Xion sits beside him, atop a clock tower that looks suspiciously familiar - no surprise, really. This seems to be a common hangout for Xion and Roxas.

"Hey," he says, easily accepting the ice cream she passes to him. "What's up?"

(It has been a while since he first became aware of the other people in his heart - nearly as long since he began conversing with them on a regular basis - and it has somehow lost that feeling of strangeness. So what if he happened to be toting around a few extra people in his heart? It's not like they ever hijacked his body, or made him do anything he didn't want to. They didn't even really talk to him while he was awake, the mental walls too strong between the conscious and sub-conscious, and they were fairly pleasant company for when he was asleep- most of them at least.)

"You tell me." Xion watches him with a careful expression. "What's troubling you?"

Sora pastes his best smile on. "What? Nothing, why would you ask that?" He may be loaning mental space to them, but even so he hates the thought of troubling anyone else with his problems. He tries to focus only on her face. Once, he had gotten distracted by the fact that she still ran around in her Organization XIII coat and had accidentally changed her appearance to include a dress he had seen on Kairi once. Xion had blushed and spent the next three days with the hood of her coat pulled low over her face.

She gives him a very firm _I most certainly do not believe you _look. "Sora, you're dreaming, and your dreams tend to be heavy-handed on metaphors." She points to a series of small white boxes, drifting slowly through the air. One is close enough for Sora to read the little price tag taped to its side: _.01¢_ "Penny for your thoughts, Sora." Xion translates helpfully.

Sora makes a face and wonders if he could have a talk with his subconscious about keeping a low profile while his heart is so much of a time share. "It's nothing, really. Just school stuff."

"He's lying, you know." It takes a moment of careful scrutiny to decide if the newcomer is good-mood Roxas, or bad-mood Roxas. Sora had discovered there seemed to be a correlation with the treatment he receives from Roxas that depended on how the Nobody appeared. Roxas flickers once - and then is dressed in the same manner as Xion. Sora relaxes.

Roxas flops down next to Xion, sliding comfortably into what he considered his spot, even if it only existed inside the collective minds of those present. "Fess up, you can't hide things from us, you should know that by now."

There is a brief battle of rude faces between Roxas and Sora before Xion finally calls a time out with a wave of her ice cream and a very firm "Enough, you two!"

(The landscape dissolves and now they are splayed on the beach of Destiny Islands, watching the sunset.)

Sora fidgets, uncomfortable under the gaze of the others. It's strange, he thinks, being scrutinized by a variation of yourself. "I don't know what to do," he admits, somewhat reluctantly, running a hand through his hair. "I don't even know where to start."

Xion reaches out, covers Sora's hand with her own. "It's okay to admit that, you know." She smiles at him and he sees more Kairi in her than himself.

"Yeah," says Roxas, slurping on his ice cream, "you're just one guy."

"I know, but… there's so many people depending on me. What if I let them down?"

"How about instead of worrying about all that, you focus on keeping your heart strong." Ven settles down beside Sora, flashing an easy-going grin and bumping Sora's shoulder playfully with his own. "That'll be the key to everything. Seriously man, don't sweat it, we have faith in you for a reason."

"Besides," pipes in Roxas, "worst case scenario I'm sure we can hot wire your body and one of us can take over." He smiles, all teeth and horrible humor.

"He's joking, right?" Sora tries not to look too panicked.

"Yes. Now eat your ice cream, it's almost time for you to wake up."

"Mm, by the way." Ven tries to look nonchalant and fails, his smile too wide and excited. "I might have a place for you to start looking."

Sora wakes and doesn't even bother changing out of his pajamas before storming out of the house. He goes to Kairi first and tells her what Ventus has thought of. She smiles and squeezes his hand and together they go to wake up Riku.

"Well," says Riku. "What are we waiting for? Let's get going."

*

Yen Sid's tower is surprisingly more spacious than one would think at first glance. They had spent the last few days resting after a long and rewarding battle.

Now they stood in a line in front of Master Yen Sid's desk: Riku at something akin to attention, Kairi with her hands folded politely behind her back, and Sora trying hard not to fidget.

"How is he?" Kairi asks, concern shining in her eyes.

"He is fortunate in that his body has suffered little damage, given the amount of darkness it has been exposed to." A very diplomatic way of beating around the bush if Riku had ever heard one.

"Yea, but how _is_ he?" asks Sora, antsy and worried and Riku is willing to bet this is the closest Ven has ever been to breaking the wall that separates him from Sora's conscious form.

Yen Sid's gaze slides across all three of them, landing to rest heavily on Riku. "He is hurting in a manner very few of us may ever relate to. He blames himself for a great many things, over which he had very little actual control."

Riku is nodding in absent-minded agreement, a subtle tilt of his head that only two people in the room catch: Kairi and Yen Sid. Sora is busy with a mostly private conversation with the people in his heart (he has yet to learn how to talk to them without moving his mouth, and so his friends have come to love him despite the fact that he appears bark raving mad.)

"Riku, you should talk to him." Kairi flashes a hopeful smile.

Riku pauses, considers her words. "Why? I'm a stranger to him."

"Only kind of. C'mon Riku, please?"

And suddenly Riku is standing outside Terra's room with a tray of fresh bread and hot soup. He stares questioningly at the food, wondering both where it came from and how he got here. The food, predictably, offers no answer. He knocks, feeling self-conscious, then slides through the door after an awkwardly quiet pause.

Terra is sitting on the edge of his cot, arms resting on his knees, fingers laced and head bowed - the perfect pose of self-loathing, a pose Riku feels far too familiar with. He lets the silence elapse a beat before clearing his throat.

Terra jumps, eyes wide and guilty. He eyes Riku like he is the undertaker, and not just a delivery boy.

Riku motions to the tray in his hands. "I have lunch for you."

"Oh. Thank you." A pause and Terra fidgets. "I'm not really hungry."

More awkward silence.

"I'll just set it over here then." Riku slides it onto the small dresser, tucked in the corner of the room. He stands and stares at the other man and wonders what to say. "I never told anyone, by the way."

Terra looks at him, confusion evident in his expression. This isn't going to be simple.

Riku clears his throat again and recites: "_In your hand take this key. So long as you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be."_ He smiles at Terra, "I never forgot those words, and I kept my promise, nobody ever knew."

The confusion is with something approaching horror. "I ruined you, didn't I?" Terra buries his face in his hands. "It's all my fau—"

"What? No, it's nothing like that." Riku runs a hand through his hair, looks around the room and wonders how to word this. "You helped me find the power I was looking for. Things went a little wrong and I misused it. It's not okay... but I fixed things." He looks at Terra, making sure the other man is paying attention. "I did what I thought was right, given what I knew at the time. It didn't work out the way I thought it would, and some people did get hurt. I can't change that, but I made sure I set things right.

"It was hard to stop blaming myself, but it wasn't all my fault. The only thing I did truly wrong was acting alone and not trusting my friends to help me." Riku sighs and tries a smile for levity's sake. "Sound kind of familiar, huh?"

Terra returns the expression with a weary one of his own. "It really does, and it sounds like I'm not the only one familiar with this lesson."

Riku flushes and shrugs, leans back to see Sora and Kairi through the crack in the door. "I had some good teachers."

*

Aqua rests with her eyes closed and tries to think of the sun, how it felt on her skin - warm and welcoming with the beginning itch of a burn tingling at the edge of her nerves. There has been very little to keep her occupied, since the strange man with the fractured memory moved on, and now all is quiet save for the hush of the tide.

"Man. What a dreary landscape."

She jumps to her feet, startled out of her thoughts, and assumes a defensive position. There is a boy with a shock of messy hair sitting beside her, all smiles and relaxed posture, like it's nothing for him to come waltzing silently through the Realm of Darkness.

"You wouldn't happen to be Aqua, would you?"

She regards him suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

The boy's face lights up and he gives a whoop of triumph as he jumps to his feet. "Perfect, I had a good feeling about today. C'mon." He grabs her hand and drags her towards the water's edge.

"Wait, who are you? Where are we going?" It's strange, but the boy's presence makes her want to smile - something about his heart, she thinks.

He flashes a grin over his shoulder, all blue eyes and bright teeth, and doesn't stop but says, "I'm Sora. And we're going home."

A wave of light swallows them - then there are stars, wheeling away, and the cold splash of the ocean and then precious fresh air.

But there is no sun. Aqua feels a swell of panic in her throat. "It's dark. Where's the sun, what's happening?" She spins, staring hard at the sky.

"Relax. It's just night time. We arranged things so you'd be here after the sun set, so it wouldn't be too bright for you."

There are two people waiting for them on the shore with large, fluffy towels. The boy makes a face at Sora and asks, "You did something cheesy, didn't you?"

Sora grins and barely avoids the punch aimed at his arm. Aqua can't help but stare in mild confusion at the exchange and try not to think of painful memories and two other boys who acted very similar.

"Aqua, right?"

Aqua is startled, both by the light she feels radiating from the girl beside her and the fact that she hadn't noticed it before. She nods mutely as the girl introduces herself as Kairi, a name that pricks something in the corner of Aqua's mind.

Kairi leads her away by the hand, babbling something about a bath and dry clothes. Aqua can't help it anymore. "You seem very familiar."

Kairi smiles warmly. "You saved me once, when I was very young." She touches a hand to the necklace around her throat. "I owe you my life, twice. If you hadn't shown up in Radiant Garden that day… I don't know what would have happened to me." She turns and hugs Aqua suddenly. "Thank you."

Aqua feels a flush of happiness as she returns the embrace. Finally, something has finally gone a little right with this whole fiasco. "I'm so glad to see you're all right."

*

The four of them pour over star maps that King Mickey had provided. "These are the most recent coordinates of all known worlds," his note reads, "but be warned, things are in a constant flux."

There are a few places Aqua recognizes from her travels; they seem spaced wrong, and she feels increasingly frustrated with the lack of headway they seem to be making. It makes her slightly unnerved that children younger than Ven are the front runners of this mission. Not that she doesn't trust them; all three of them have more than proven to be capable. It just bothers her that they were forced to grow up so fast.

"I think I may know where Ventus is." Kairi is standing in front of a window, staring out at the scenery as sun washes over her and seems to make her a light shadow version of herself.

"Naminé, is that you?" Riku asks. The girl turns and smiles shyly and Aqua realizes that it isn't, in fact, Kairi at all.

Naminé moves across the room and points to a star cluster that had already been rejected. "Here."

"Isn't that?" Riku is regarding her strangely and Aqua feels like she's missing a large piece of this puzzle.

"Yes."

"What makes you think he's there?"

"Castle Oblivion wasn't its natural form; it was suppressing something... I could tell that much. Knowing what we know now, it fits, doesn't it?"

There is a quiet, excited conversation between Sora and Riku and the girl who is and is not Kairi smiles calmly at Aqua. "Sora can handle this." She says. Aqua moves to protest and the girl continues, "Ventus is aware enough now - once he's in close proximity to his body, the heart will naturally lead the way. And besides," she motions towards the door, "There's someone that's been waiting to see you."

Aqua's breath hitches in her throat as she realizes what Naminé means. "Where is he?"

The beach, they say, and she sticks around long enough to see them off in one of those strange gummy ships. Then she is a whirl of motion, running through the unfamiliar town with its unfamiliar sights and sounds and smells to the one thing on this world she knows.

He is facing the ocean, back towards her. Aqua stops to catch her breath and study him. All these years later and he is still nothing less than Terra. She can read the tension in his shoulders, the curve of his neck as he stares down at the water. Aqua moves to greet him and pauses, wondering where they stand now, with so much between them.

With a deep breath and a silent prayer to the sky for strength, she moves forward. They are close enough to touch now, and he holds carefully still. Aqua wonders if he has stopped breathing as she regards him out the corner of her eye.

"It's good to see you again, Terra." She smiles and finally faces him.

"Aqua, I'm sorry." He stares at the sand between them and takes a step away from her. "I'm so sorry, for everything. You and Ven were hurt and it's all my fault." Another step away. "Master Eraqus was right to doubt me all along."

She feels a surge of unaccustomed anger, at him and their master, at the whole situation and her own hand in it. "Would you _stop_ that? You're not the only one to blame here, Terra, we all are. Master Eraqus didn't trust us enough to tell us the truth- and Master Xehanort _used_ you. That wasn't your fault." Aqua moves forward, grabbing Terra's hand before he can move away. "Ven and I never stopped believing in you. We trusted you to know what you were doing and you _did_. The only thing you did wrong was think you couldn't trust us."

Terra tries to pull away. "How can you say that? The darkness, the things I've done-"

"They don't make you who you are. Listen, Riku has been in the same boat you are, but do you know what the difference is? He trusts his friends to catch him, and he has a mentor who believed in him, despite the darkness." She laces her fingers through his and leans her head against his shoulder. "It's not too late for you to have that too. Ven and I just need you to open yourself to us, trust us, alright?"

He fidgets against her. "Is it really that easy?"

"It can be, if you'll let it. I've already spoken to King Mickey and Master Yen Sid. They both said they'd help you harness your powers."

"Okay, then," he sighs. "Okay, I'll try." Terra squeezes her hand. "Now what?"

"Now, we wait for Ven."

*

They fall asleep to the hush of the ocean. A fine mist of salt water and sand coats them as the sun begins crawling into the sky.

"Please," says Ventus behind them, and they both jump and stare at their friend with wide eyes. "Please tell me you two have finally stopped beating around the bush and are going to start being obnoxious and cuddly all the time, or I swear I will beat you both with my keyblade." He's smiling despite the threat and there is a barely restrained moment before he launches himself at Aqua and Terra.

They catch him, laughing as they do so. "Well?" He gives Terra a very pointed look before disentangling himself. "I'll be right over here, not spying on you two while you have a heart to heart. Kay?"

Terra, for his part blushes and looks somewhere just to the left of Aqua. "Do you still have the same dream?"

She blinks at him. "W-what?"

"About all of us being keyblade masters together, do you still have that dream?"

"Of course!"

He nods, weirdly serious. "Then I need to see about earning my mark of mastery so we can work on a new dream." He has moved in to her space, dangerously close and Aqua feels her cheeks flush.

"Which would be?"

"Finding out what life is like with you. Not as apprentices or masters, but as Terra and Aqua." He brushes her bangs away from her face. "If that's all right with you."

"Say yes!" Ven shouts.

There is a strange flutter of happiness swelling in Aqua's chest. She blushes and says, "I ...would like that. Very much."

Terra smiles. "Guess I'd better go see Master Yen Sid about that test then."

Ven is there again, all smiles and dances around his friends. "Well then, what are we waiting for?" He grabs Terra's free hand and tugs them away from the beach. Up the street Aqua can see Sora, Riku, and Kairi waiting for them.

It's not the same as it was, she realizes, but somehow she finds herself completely okay with the way things are now.

* * *

><p>End Note: This extremely fluffy piece was originally written for the kh_drabble secret santa exchange. I couldn't just pick one of the prompts I was given, so I dabbled with all of them.<p> 


End file.
